Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton, per usual, bring the Gothic deshabille.


Designer Nanette Lepore knows that if there's one crowd that won't blink at vaguely tribal girly armor, it's this one.


Michelle Harper is a fixture on the social scene and, yes, she always looks this fabulously deco-glam.


Aww, it's Danny DeVito and daughter Gracie!


Jeez louise, is Gabourey Sidibe batting 1000, or what? Nary a misstep, folks! Nary a one!


Brooke Shields can do simple elegance. She was a Calvin girl, after all.


Say what you will about Anna Wintour, say what you will about fur...man, those hems are aligned with a military precision!


Is Ashley Greene's LBD breaking any hearts? No, but I can't take my eyes off her face, so it all works out.


You know what I love most about this pic of MK and Ashley? That they're both carrying briefcases, in case they might need to have an impromptu meeting. Moguls, people.


It's true that Rose Byrne is a special favorite, but come on: this is cool. Would I wear it? Could I wear it? No and no. That's why stars: are nothing like us.


Somehow in the context of this event it would seem strange if Johnny Depp hadn't shown up with Patti Smith as his date, and if they hadn't looked exactly like this. Yes, quizzing glass, hankie and all.


We'd say Helena Bonham Carter had been in one too many Tim Burton movies, but she was always an eccentric, and she's ended up in exactly the right place and, at the end of the day, it's pretty wonderful.


Hamish Bowles (Vogue's European Editor at Large) is one of this town's most reliable and natty dandies.


David and Julia Koch do "artistic socialite." Okay, not him so much.

[Images via Getty]

• Change! Stately old American Vogue is apparently seeking to revamp itself. Says Wayne Sterling, the mag wants "a new circle of models, an influx of fresh, young photographers and a desire for 'unpredictability' in the stories." Unpredictability. In Vogue. [TI]

• Marc Jacobs has added two pro-marriage equality t-shirts to his Marc by Marc line. One shows a line drawing of a lesbian couple with a child, and the other shows an American flag and a dollar sign; both have the tag line "I pay my taxes, I want my rights." The tees cost $24 and are available now. Jacobs is of course looking forward to his own gay marriage, in Massachusetts, later this summer. [PerezHilton]
• Jacobs, along with Patti Smith and David Rockwell, has been named one of the Pratt Institute's Legends of 2009. [WWD]
• Madonna wears diamond dust on her eyes. For that extra sparkly something. [People]
• Patrick Demarchelier shot Gossip Girl's Taylor Momsen in Central Park for the September cover of Teen Vogue. [TFS]
• The Kaiser's Chanel accessories ads featuring Lily Allen, who recently launched her own jewelry line, are also out. She wears a tiara in one; in another, she looks like she's hiding behind a carry-all. [FWD]
• Amanda Hearst, the model/heiress, is rumored to have been offered a job sinecure at Hearst-owned Marie Claire. [P6]
• More details are emerging about the only bid for the house of Lacroix that the bankrupt company's administrator has yet deemed "serious": Italian department store company Borletti had bid jointly with Christian Lacroix himself. Borletti bought the Printemps department store chain from Pinault-Printemps-Redoute in 2006, and owns the Italian department store La Rinescente jointly with Deutsche Bank. French turnaround firm Bernard Krief Consulting made a bid that the administrator described as "insufficient" for the fashion house, and which it has promised to revise upwards. No dollar values for these bids has been revealed. [Reuters]
• Maybe one way Christian Lacroix could make a little cash would be licensing his name to an unaffiliated uniforms division, since that's exactly what Nicolas Ghesquière of Balenciaga did. Air Tahiti Nui sent out a very happy press release yesterday announcing the introduction of its brand-spanking-new Balenciaga uniforms — but further investigation has revealed that the gear was made under license by a uniform company using the Balenciaga name. Our visions of flying with space-age Ghesquière creations were crushed. [The Moment]
• The rumors were true: Coach is launching — and fully funding — a signature line for its creative director, Reed Krakoff. The designer's eponymous accessories collection will launch for Fall '10. [WWD]
• This is despite the fact that Coach suffered a 32% decline in quarterly profits for the period ended June 27. Net income fell from $213.5 million last year to $145.8 million. [WWD]
• Rachel Roy and Estelle are working together on a jewelry line. Roy announced this via Twitter. [WWD]
• Zappos earned $10.7 million from total sales of $635 million worth of sales last year, according to new owner Amazon's SEC filing. [TBI]
• New York City charity HousingWorks, which sells used clothing and furniture and donates its profits to fund AIDS and homelessness, has been doing great business in the recession — understandable, considering so many of their offerings are designer. Susan Sarandon, Bill Clinton, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Chloé Sevigny, as well as, one presumes, a whole slew of regular well-dressed folk, all recently donated clothes and goods. [NYObs]
• Bravo, still reeling from the loss of Project Runway, is launching another fashion-themed reality show: Launch My Line. The concept pairs new designers with established industry lights in order to develop the youngsters' businesses — the best mentee gets his or her line launched, and the best mentor gets $50,000. It all unfolds under the watchful eye of hosts Dean and Dan Caten, of DSquared2, and judges Stefani Greenfield, formerly of retail chain Scoop, and Lisa Kline. [FabSugar]
• Profits at the multinational luxury company LVMH, which owns everything from Louis Vuitton to Dior to Sephora, dropped 23% in the first six months of this year, to 687 million euros, or $934.3 million, from 891 million euros, or $1.39 billion, a year earlier. Sales during the same period rose 0.2% on a year earlier. The top performing brands was Sephora, and Louis Vuitton handbag sales remained strong. [WWD]
• Maybe, just maybe, one reason profits are down is the fact that Louis Vuitton is trying to sell a $450 USB key? Hermès, in any case, is jumping on the lux-tech bandwagon with a bluetooth device "made of super lightweight carbon fiber, aluminum and supple leather ... [with a] custom-built silicon earring." [Racked]
• Men's control underwear is still being talked about as if it's a new idea. It isn't. [Telegraph]

[Icheon, South Korea, July 26. Image via Getty.]

• File under matches made in heaven: Karl Lagerfeld has designed couture costumes for England's National Ballet. [Telegraph]

• Did Eva Herzigova drink a lot of champagne at the opening of the Michael Kors store in London, and then walk out the door with a bracelet, watch, and sunglasses? Security guards reportedly looked like they were going to stop the supermodel, until the paparazzi started taking her picture. Kors claimed the next day that Herzigova was "being cheeky" — but that the items were a gift. [Daily Mail]
• Get ready to see a lot more of Jessica Biel: The actress has been named the newest face of Revlon. [WWD]
• Filene's Basement has filed for bankruptcy protection. Apparently, now that other stores have been forced to cut their prices, Filene's discounts are less impressive in the retail lineup. [Reuters]
• The Olivier Theyskens/Halston rumors are back. With the added complicator of Anna Wintour's involvement. [WWD]
• Holding the annual costume institute gala at the Met might distract from the Renoirs, sniffs writer Michael Gross. [NY Post]
• Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell, and Linda Evangelista will all skip the event. Turlington is out of the country, filming a (doubtless very important) "documentary on maternal health." Steven Meisel will also sit the party out — but that's no surprise since the man is rarely glimpsed in public. [P6]
• Patti Smith doesn't require fashion. "I can wear rags," says the musician. "But they have to be cool rags." [The Cut]
• Mischa Barton, however, pretty much requires headbands. Or at least requires you to buy hers, since she doesn't have a career anymore, other than waiting to see if her pilot is getting picked up. [People]
• England apparently has has a Dress of the Year award since 1963. And this year it went to Kate Moss, for one of her Topshop designs. [Independent]
• Meanwhile Topshop, ever the good neighbor, has apparently knocked off Alexander Wang's "naked" dress — the one with the floating embroidery on mesh. [Racked]
• Wang's jacket for the Gap looks like a a biker jacket that swallowed a trench coat. [Racked]
• Is Azzedine Alaïa looking to launch a lingerie line? If so, why wont the famously body-conscious women's wear designer design it himself? [Elle]
• Speaking of lingerie, you should read this entertaining profile of Joe Corré, son of Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, and co-founder of Agent Provocateur. "I don't buy into all this brand-identity bollocks — the Gucci lifestyle, the Prada lifestyle," says Corré. "What does that mean? That you're a rich, bored idiot with no soul? It's just emperor's new clothes bullshit. We're against all that. Agent Provocateur is about an attitude, about empowerment." [Guardian]
• Hogan's fall campaign will reportedly star Nate Lowman, an artist who dates Mary-Kate Olsen. [Fashionista]
• Bar Refaeli, the Israeli supermodel, has designed "the perfect little black bikini." It looks exactly like every other string bikini you've ever seen, but it costs $120. [People]
• Ben Sherman is quitting the footwear business by the end of this year. [WWD]
• On the other foot: Skechers, which is now back in the black. [WWD]
• Lily Cole, the British model, has not one but three movies coming out. And a new Rimmel ad. And, oh yeah, she's a full-time student at Cabridge. [The Cut]
• Thom Browne, whose business was rumored to be in dire straits recently, had his CEO and CFO depart on Friday. [WWD]

Melbourne, Australia, October 11. Image via Getty.

Village Voice:

If Patti Smith's narration to Dream of Life was simplified into a stanza, it might go something like this: As long as I can remember I sought to be free/Bob Dylan once tuned this guitar for me/My mission is to give people my energy/Fred, Jesse, and Jackson are my family tree/New generations, rise up, rise up, take to the streets/Me and Flea talking about pee. Her much more long-winded monologues are just as randomly assembled in the actual documentary, 109 mostly black-and-white minutes of punk's wet nurse floating through the modern world while endlessly ruminating on mortality, art, and the occasional bodily function. Problem is, there's nary a hint of context, even with biographic essentials: When Patti sprinkles the ashes of "Robert" onto her palm, we're momentarily left to guess that's Mapplethorpe; when she and erstwhile paramour Sam Shepard are acoustically jamming and their respective tattoos come up, the playwright muses, "That was a weird night at the Chelsea." More, please?

New York:

Eleven years in the making, fashion photographer and artist Steven Sebring’s gorgeous, up-close-and-personal doc about the legendary rocker is both a journey into Smith’s storied past and a portrait of her life today—less a movie about a musician than a transfixing meditation on her own iconography.

Salon:

"Patti Smith: Dream of Life" is frequently beautiful and intermittently haunting and could be called a meditation on aging and mortality, an intimate study of a peculiar variety of fame and a portrait of a genuinely remarkable person. It has played at Sundance and Berlin and all over the film festival world, at least in part because everyone's so amazed it actually got finished. Still, while "Dream of Life" succeeds on its own terms, I can't help feeling there's a missed opportunity here, an opportunity to make clear to younger women and men just how amazing Patti Smith's journey has been. (Maybe, like Julien Temple's wonderful "Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten," that kind of film can't be made while the subject is alive — but I'm not quite sure why that would be so.)

The New York Times:

You may not learn everything you want to know in “Patti Smith: Dream of Life,” an impressionistic portrait of that punk godhead, but you learn just about everything you need. Created over a heroic 11 years, it was directed and mostly shot by Steven Sebring, a high-end commercial photographer whose perseverance and conspicuous unfamiliarity with, or disregard for, the conventions of nonfiction cinema (not to mention the apparently deep-enough pockets that freed him to follow his own muse) have inspired a lovely, drifty first feature that feels less like a documentary and more like an act of rapturous devotion.

Variety:

The titular rocker-poet gets a suitable portrait in Steven Sebring's "Patti Smith: Dream of Life," which runs radically against the grain of American-made pop music docs. The result of 11 years of filming (much of it in wonderfully grainy black-and-white 16mm), pic is designed as a stream-of-consciousness experience, following Smith as she revives her music career and considers every aspect of her life. Death, too, plays a stark role, and the textured, thoughtful results may prove too cerebral and abstract for auds beyond Smith's hardcore followers, but long-term, this will be a loss-leader that gains much respect.

What Sebring — a fashion and pop photographer, painter and commercials maker — doesn't know about doc filmmaking never hurts the film. Starting in 1995, when Smith recorded her comeback album "Gone Again" and toured with her idol, Bob Dylan, after having not performed live for 16 years, Sebring's project clearly developed as it went along, and the effect of watching the film is seeing something in the making — like rummaging through Smith's closet, and stumbling across interesting stuff.

The Hollywood Reporter:

A knowledge of Smith's landmark contribution as a rock 'n' roll pioneer is not essential, and the film should be a joy for anyone interested in pop culture of the past 40 years.

Sebring does not take a conventional route here, which is fitting for his subject. The long gestation period for the film has afforded an intimacy and ease that allows him to penetrate Smith's inner and outer worlds, weaving back and forth in time from her arrival in New York in the late 1960s to raising her two children in Detroit with husband Fred "Sonic" Smith to her triumphant return to performing in the mid-'90s. Structure is anchored in the bedroom of Smith's cluttered New York apartment and jumps around from there as she reflects on her life and art.

Time Out New York:

But having privileged access and elucidating a mysterious figure are two different things. Sebring makes the crucial mistake of assuming his viewers are all Smithologists. (Even for them, the film might be too vague to become a holy object.) Amazingly, there is no testimony to contextualize her impact on the punk world, nothing at all about the horrendous 1977 onstage injury—she broke several neck vertebrae—that almost cost Smith her career. The live footage is choppy and interrupted; almost perversely, we never hear Smith’s gorgeous hit “Because the Night.” And the great question mark over Smith’s life—why she retreated from the spotlight along with her husband, White Panther and former MC5er Fred “Sonic” Smith—is not probed.

Instead, we get a lot of the singer’s poetry and recent political activism, and many sweet moments with her children and doting parents. Sebring is a sentimentalist, and his film comes alive when Smith melts into warm memories of going to Coney Island with Robert Mapplethorpe and getting hot dogs. But the opportunity to introduce newbies to a serious music-world icon—and her significance—feels squandered.

'Patti Smith: Dream of Life' opens today in limited release

The Breeders success has always been painted by rock critics as a 90s anomaly. It all started when the Pixies fell apart in the early 90s, which was due, in part, to Kim's mounting popularity. Some say that lead singer Frank Black couldn't handle being second banana, and so Kim struck out on her own, forming a rag-tag band which eventually included her identical twin sister Kelley, who was working as a computer programmer and had never played guitar before. According to Ethan Smith, who wrote a telling and entertaining profile of the Breeders for the Times Magazine when they released Title TK in 2002, "In most musical eras, this would hardly be a recipe for chart-topping success. But courageous amateurism was all the rage in the early 90's. In their quest for authenticity, fans and record executives alike were seeking underdogs to make into heroes."

Well, it's 2008 now, and a love of ballsy dilettantism has been replaced by a vocoder nation. When I arrived at Brooklyn's McCarren Pool for the Breeders show yesterday, I expected a bunch of fellow 90s enthusiasts who remembered when Last Splash was a big hit in 1993 and wanted to worship (and reminisce) at the altar of the sisters Deal. Instead, I found a park filled with 19-year-olds in unholy hybrids of short shorts and mom jeans (see fig. A at the bottom of this post).

It was hot, and even the snuggly confines of the free-booze filled VIP section couldn't make up for the sun's unyielding rays on our aged flesh. My friends and I ended up putting a makeshift tarp over our heads and offering sunblock to scantily clad and quickly reddening youngins like the crazy old ladies that we were. We got there around 3 and the Breeders didn't take the stage until 5:30 or so, which meant that we spent the better part of two hours counting the number of girls wearing rompers (12) and Keds (7) and rompers and Keds (1).

When the Breeders finally came on, we didn't have the energy to push our way to the front of undulating mass at the front of the stage, so we hung back in the shade and listened to Kim and Kelley (fig. B). I was hoping for one of the twins' famous public spats (from the 2002 Times article: "Suddenly the slumber party has become an episode of ''Judge Hatchett.'' Close your eyes and the twins' flat-accented, not-quite-identical altos — a source of fascinating musical effects on disc and stage — sound like one extremely unhinged woman on the brink of wringing her own neck.") but the Breeders' performance was smooth and professional. Though after decades of hard living, at 46 they're looking a little worse for the wear, Kim's clear and femme voice sounded the same as it ever did, which is to say occasionally transcendent. Most of the romper-clad audience didn't appear to be superfans like me, but they certainly appreciated the rock that Kim and co. were slinging almost as much as they appreciated self-consciously watching each other's outfits.

We left early, before the encore, because we didn't want to have to wait in the endless line that would undoubtedly form at the park's exit. I was happy to see that the hipster masses would still congregate in droves to hear Kim Deal, but I can't say I loved the show. I'm too old and cranky to deal with the crowds and the smell and the lines and the rancid portapotties. This was the second time I'd seen the Breeders. The first time was in 2002. What's remarkable about Kim Deal is that through several different band changes and life changes, she's been remarkably consistent. She still makes the same lo-fi, stripped down rock and keeps the same unkempt, fuck-you image that made her a commercial success in 1993. Though critics might not know what to do with aging female rock stars, female rock stars know what to do with themselves: keep making music.

Wait! One more thing. 40something female rock stars keep making music, but they also revive amazing flame wars in glossy magazines with similarly aged dude rockers. "You know, [Pavement’s Stephen] Malkmus is being a bit of a bitch in interviews recently," Kim said in April to Time Out. "One thing he said last summer referred to me as 'trashy mouth.' And he just did this article in Spin where he alluded to me unpleasantly, saying [something like], “You know, I always thought that Pavement could have had one of those big hits in the early ’90s with ‘Cut Your Hair,’ but I guess people preferred ‘Cannonball.’…God, man, “Cut Your Hair” isn’t as good of a song as 'Cannonball,' so fuck you. How’s that? Your song was just a’ight, dawg." Kim, I might be too old and lame to like concerts, but you're still my hero.

Fig. A: a denim romper:

Fig. B: our crappy, old lady view from the back of the crowd:

She Is a Punk Rocker [New York Times Magazine]
Cool As Kim Deal [Village Voice]
The Hot Seat: Kim Deal [Time Out New York]

Relateed: Rompers, Jellies, And Denim: A Summer Sunday In Williamsburg [Style.com]

[Philadelphia, April 15. Image via FilmMagic.]

• Woody Allen is suing American Apparel for $10 million for using his image in its ads without consent. And to think if not for this minor infringement the two seem, well, cut from the same (sweatshop free knit jersey) cloth, if you know what I mean! [WSJ]
  
• And for those who'd rather read about it in Yiddish...[Daily Yid]
  
• The guys who design 6267 are now going to design Gianfranco Ferre. Everyone sorta knew this was coming. And by "everyone" I mean the people who actually know what 6267 is, which, I know for a fact, is not Moe Tkacik. [Dear Jennifer, Fuck you. -Eva] [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Talbots: Doesn't want to be "dowdy." Uh, John McCain doesn't want to be old, either, but sometimes...oh well, try to reinvent yourselves into the career woman's answer to Wet Seal, see if that works. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Patti Smith is still stylish, according to British people who know these things. [Times of London]

• BTW, fashion so over. [Telegraph]
• Banana Republic is doing a new "high-end" line called Monogram. LOL. [Fashionista]
• Playboy's e-retail women's store is doing so well, they're having to outsource the whole damn thing. Seriously, did no one read Bunny Tales?! Stop putting money in Hugh Hefner's baby-oil soaked pockets! [WWD, sub req'd]
• Donna Karan: Licensing a china and crystal line through Rosenthal. And Vera Wang's monopoly on label-conscious brides just shook in its stilettos. Not. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Recession special! Get your "basic men's sweaters" for only $3,500 here! [Village Voice]
• Alicia Keys says her friend Giorgio Armani "is like a magician." [Times of London]
• Dear Gucci: Stop having the people of Japan sully their cell phones with wallpapers bearing your logo and products. Kthxbai. [WWD, 2nd item]
• Paul Smith likes airports. [Nylon]
• Um is it wrong that I want to read the new Kate Moss biography? [Yes. -Errol Morris] [LA Times]

[NYT —Carpetbagger]

When Dodai was young, her aunt came over to model the glow-in-the-dark jeans she'd purchased to wear to Studio 54. Another time this same aunt took Dodai and her siblings "to great adventure's drive through safari — she brought boiled eggs and sardines for the road trip — the car smelled insane and we got attacked by monkeys."

The Anonymous Lobbyist has an aunt who is only 5'1" but has a habit of making threats on salespeople. Moe has an aunt "who is a nurse practitioner and likes to prescribe anyone and everyone meds." She once called the sheriff on her brother. At 11 o'clock at night. "This aunt is crazy in a bad way, obvs. She was also anorexic, perhaps unsurprisingly." Who doesn't love an anorexic with a prescription pad?! We know we're not alone — tell us the antics of your lovable aunties!

Loathed, Lovable, and Loopy [WSJ]